This invention relates to surfactant granules of fatty alcohol sulfates and olefin sulfonates, to a process for their production and to the use of olefin sulfonates for improving the solubility of fatty alcohol sulfate granules in cold water.
Anionic surfactants, more particularly alkyl sulfates or fatty alcohol sulfates, are important constituents of laundry detergents, dishwashing detergents and cleaners. In the process used to produce them, anionic surfactants are obtained in the form of water-containing pastes with water contents of 30 to 75% by weight. In order to obtain solid products, the water-containing pastes are dried, for example in spray-drying towers, or are produced by drying and simultaneous granulation, more particularly in a fluidized bed. It is known, for example from European patent EP 0603207B, that water-containing pastes of alkyl sulfates can be converted into granules of high bulk density by drying and simultaneous granulation in a continuous fluidized bed. It is also possible in this process to incorporate inorganic or organic carrier materials.
C6/18 fatty alcohol sulfate granules produced by simultaneous drying and granulation show inadequate solubility and dispersibility at low temperatures. Since the solution to this problem is very important for cold washing processes, the problem addressed by the present invention was to improve the dissolving and dispersing behavior of granular C1/8 fatty alcohol sulfates at low temperatures.